I'm Tagging With the Band
by Shiva-J
Summary: In a world where Tommy Sherman became the lead singer/frontman for the world famous rock band, Mystik Spiral. The groups designated 'Little Sister' Jane Lane finds those who belong with their 'true family'.
1. Meeting Daria

**I'm Tagging With the Band: Meeting Daria**

"So what do you think of the band?" the girl asked her while taking a drag of her cigarette, not giving a crap about the whole 'you can't smoke indoors thing'.

Daria shrugged as the other girl exhaled, "It's good, and it got me out of English class."

As the girl laughed, Daria took in her appearance, her short cut raven hair had red zig-zags, her ears were covered in piercings, black leather from head to toe, though her belly shirt was a size too small and low cut enough to reveal extensive tattooing.

Daria offered her a rare grin, "I'm sorry I didn't catch your name."

"It's Jane, Jane Lane." the girl replied and then asked for hers as well.

"Daria Morgendorffer," Daria answered before glancing at the auditorium stage where the band, Mystik Spiral was playing.

"So your brother is Trent Lane right?" Daria asked and pointed to the guitarist next to the singer, Tommy Sherman.

Jane nodded as they wrapped up 'Burning Brandy', "I've been tagging along with my brothers band for as long as I can remember, I was there when my brother was a Freshman right here in Lawndale High and he and Jesse were teaching themselves to play guitar."

Daria glanced back at the band and picked out the rhythm guitarist, with his long brown locks, exposed muscular chest, and combat boots.

"The boots seem to be a trend." Daria mused to herself for a brief moment while kicking the floor with her own military issue footwear.

"Well anyway one day the three of us were in the park, trying to scrape some cash when the football bigshot, Tommy Sherman came around and began to make fun of them for their bad playing when I said."

Jane then pitched her voice a couple octaves higher, "Think you can do better?!"

Daria glanced back at the stage where the band was beginning to play their current number one hit, 'Happiness in a Bottle' and said, "Let me guess, he took that as a challenge and began to sing, right?"

Jane nodded, "Yup, and shocked the hell out of everyone when he proved that he had a set of pipes man."

Jane then pointed at the bassist and drummer, "Curtis and Max came later, well the first bassist was a dude named Nick but he knocked up his girl and got kicked out."

Daria nodded, "So if Tommy was a football star, how did he wind up singing for the band?"

Jane grinned, "At first it was a secret indulgence for the big lug, singing on the side while playing ball for the Lawndale Lions."

"Until...?" Daria supplied.

"Until in mid-sophomore year he got sacked so hard that he had a concussion and when me and Trent visited him in the hospital, I can still remember seeing Tommy waking up and muttering, 'This football shit ain't worth it man."

Jane then looked around the packed auditorium of Lawndale High, "And I agree with him, football sucks and so do the kids here, but you seem cool."

"Cool," Daria replied and then added, "So after the hospital thing, I'm guessing that Tommy quit the team and threw himself into music full time, right?"

"Yup!" Jane drawled as she lit up a new smoke, "Tommy took all that energy and focus he put into football and put it all into the band, man I can still hear Trent's complaints about having to practice even when he didn't want too."

Daria and Jane both shared a laugh.

"But it did turn what could have been another failed crappy garage band into a heavy metal machine. And the rest," Jane said indicating to the band, "Is history."

Daria then noted, "And they came back to Lawndale High to rub it in everyone's faces at how successful they became."

Jane nodded, "Yeah, especially since Tommy got a real hard time for leaving the team. Well I say it was the smartest thing he ever did."

Daria laughed again, and secretly wished that this wouldn't be the only time she would get to see this girl. She was easily the most interesting person she had ever met.

"Say Daria?" Jane said questioningly, "We seem to have hit it off, and you told me about your own crappy life here in town."

"Yeah," Daria intoned, "Not to mention my so-called family."

Jane smirked, "Wanna come with us?"

Daria did a double take, "What?"

Jane shrugged, "Wanna come with us? I could use decent company and the band could use another 'Little Sister' to take care of. You'll meet all sorts of interesting people, plus you get the pick of the litter of the hot guys that come to the shows looking for chicks to score with."

Daria became very quiet as she thought it over, it seemed like the most insane idea she had ever heard. Abandon everything at the turn of a dime and follow a band because of a girl she had just met? Ludicrous.

Daria opened her mouth to say no, but heard herself say, "Yes!"

Jane grinned, "Cool, I know a guy that can make Fake IDs, since you look about eighteen no one will really question it. That is when we're in areas that care about that sort of thing."

Daria's heart was pounding and her stomach was doing backflips, but this whole thing felt like gravity, no matter how much she told herself not to do this.

She couldn't stop it from happening, some part of her didn't want it to stop.

Jane took hold of her hand and said, "Just follow me to the backstage area, once the band's done playing we'll slip out with them. No one's going to question it, and the guys will love you. I know I already do."

That cinched it for her, Daria felt an actual wide grin form on her face, bringing forth a special kind of beauty that she had been hiding for years.

This was the start of her new life with the band.


	2. Meeting Tom

**I'm Tagging With the Band: Meeting Tom**

The Grove Hills/Fielding Mixer was about what Tom Sloane expected it to be, a sucky event with sucky people.

But the reason he had come to this one was due to the band that was hired to play this time, Mystik Spiral.

As he stood a little bit off in a corner by himself, his friends off on their own adventures, Tom couldn't help but wonder how in the hell the cheap ass bastards than ran the place found it in themselves to cough up for a hit band like this.

A chuckle from nearby brought Tom back to reality and looked up just in time to see two very out of place girls standing nearby.

They both had dyed hair, piercings and tats all over the place, and they were easy to see since their leather outfits were very skimpy and tight and left very little to the imagination.

"Some rich girl's daddy paid for this." The one with hints of Auburn in her hair said and motioned towards a gaggle of Tops.

Tom shook his head in surprise and both girls laughed again.

The one with hints of natural black added, "You were thinking out loud, and I'm Jane and this is Daria by the way."

"Charmed," Tom replied sincerely and shook Jane's hand, "I'm Tom."

He then asked how they had gotten in and they both looked at each other with slight smirks.

Daria then answered, "Oh, we're with the band."

"Groupies?" Tom asked before he could stop himself.

Jane shook her head, "Nope, we're their lil' sisters slash roadies."

"Don't forget muses." Daria added with a wink. Jane shook her head again and added, "Ok, and in Daria's case, a muse for the boys to get inspired by."

This time Tom was able to keep his mouth shut. However they both could guess what he was thinking and grinned very wicked grins.

"You see Tom," Jane said as she slid on over towards him, "We were worried that at a party full of spoiled rich kids that there wouldn't be anyone _interesting_ to talk to. But you seem cool."

"Cool." Tom drawled as he noticed just _how_ close Daria and Jane were getting, he could almost taste the leather on his tongue, and he took a swig of his spiked punch to cool off.

Daria looked right into his eyes, and Jane could see the colors of sea green and brown almost blending together as Daria said, "So... You want to keep talking to us in a more private setting?"

"Yes." Tom managed to say, miraculously without his voice cracking...

* * *

_Seven Hours later..._

In a bed in a rather swanky hotel, Tom was in a sandwich between the two beauties, the sheets and bedding long since stripped away, their clothing torn to shreds on the floor, they were all soaked in fluids and panting to catch their collective breaths.

"Glad that Trent talked Tommy into letting us crash in style here, huh?" Jane wheezed to her friend on the other side of Tom.

"Hell yeah!" Daria answered with a throaty laugh, "Pretty sure that seeing one of the MS tour buses rocking back and forth as it went down the highway would of attracted the wrong kind of attention.

Even Tom laughed at that.

A comfortable silence fell upon the trio for a little while, letting each of them enjoy the close contact and body heat, Tom found himself tracing his hands up and down the exposed bodies of Daria and Jane, almost trying to memorize them both by touch alone.

Jane shifted position to be closer to his face and planted a soft kiss on his lips before whispering, "So... How attached are you to your family?"

Tom muttered, "...Less and less every day. They just... They just don't understand me at all."

Daria laid her head on his chest and could hear his heart beating away and grinned unseen as she said, "I know how you feel Tom... I felt that way once, isolated and alone, surrounded by dullards and morons who wanted me in a box..."

She then looked up right at him and said, "You see... and you are the first outsider I've ever told this too. I wasn't originally a Lil' Sister, that was Jane's honor. I joined the band about a year ago, leaving Lawndale behind until today."

Tom mulled this over and something about Daria's name and face caused his memory to jog a little, specifically to one of those 'Local Runaway' stories that crop up every now and then only to vanish after a few days.

"You... You're Daria Morgendorffer." Tom hissed in surprise.

Daria nodded, "Yup, though to everyone else I'm now Darla Sherman, Tommy's cousin."

Jane chuckled nearby, "Surprised?"

"Kind of." Tom admitted, even while thinking that he should be doing any one number of things other than what he was doing now.

Which was stroking Daria's hair and turning over a bit to kiss Jane briefly.

"The reason we're telling you this Tom is that you are the first person we've met that is truly like us... Someone who deserves a _different_ sort of life. One that only Mystik Spiral can give."

"What kind of life would that be?" Tom found himself asking, even as an ominous feeling began to bloom all around him.

Daria and Jane both grinned, "A life away from your so-called family, a life of music, poetry, art, freedom, and above all else... power."

It sounded like nonsense, at least to a rational mind, but something about how they were saying it, something about how they had behaved, and something in their eyes in that moment caused Tom Sloane to pause that rational part of himself and truly consider this new possibility.

"Power..." Tom breathed to himself softly, "Real power?"

Daria and Jane continued to grin and replied in unison, "Oh yes..."

Daria then leaned upward and kissed his neck and added, "So... Are you in?"

Without any hesitation Tom answered, "Yes."

And with that, Tom left the upper crust, fully mapped out life that would lead to WASP respectability behind him, forever.


	3. Hiring Amy

**I'm Tagging With the Band: Hiring Amy**

It wasn't often that Amy Barksdale got an invitation to be interviewed for a publicist job, under most circumstances she would be the one to seek out the job rather than have one fall into her lap.

"Especially one that involves Mystik Spiral." Amy reminded herself as she pulled up into a parking space near a derelict recording studio in her hometown of Boston.

What struck Amy first was how intense the security teams were, she had seen her share of bands over the years and their bodyguards were usually big beefy guys who were designed to intimidate, but usually only had training as basic security guards or cops (at best).

These guys however didn't have the 'steroid binge' look, they were lean and their eyes were taking in everything and analyzing it for threats, and to Amy they reeked of ex-military.

With surprising efficiency Amy was ushered in, and her eye caught that there were some pretty new and sleek security devices installed in a building this disheveled.

She was taken into the first hallway then wanded and scanned with devices she didn't recognize before someone snapped her photo and a couple seconds later was handing her an ID Badge and warned not to lose it.

"Or else." one of the guards said flatly and Amy took him at his word.

Another guard then offered her his hand and stated that he would escort her to 'the Manager.'

"I wonder who that would be." Amy thought as her unnamed escort began leading her through what felt like a maze of doors, stairwells, and corridors.

Mystik Spiral was famous for many things, great music, massive onstage performances, outrageous behavior, rumors of the occult, and the revolving door of Managers.

It was believed that MS had gone through eight managers through their career, and six of them had died in bizarre accidents, one was in a mental asylum, and the other survivor was in a permanent coma somewhere in Columbus, Ohio.

Amy was yanked out of her musing when the escort stopped moving in front of a door and said, "This is the main recording studio, you'll be talking to the Man in here."  
The escort then walked away so quickly that she didn't have time to ask him any questions.

So it was with a huff that Amy let herself in, the instant she opened the door the silence was shattered by the blast of a guitar solo booming from the speakers.

Amy walked in and took in the recording room, unlike the ones she had seen before this recording studio was spacious and unlike the rest of the building was well cared for and maintained.

As jaded as she was from years of exposure to celebrity culture, Amy did feel a twinge of excitement at the sights of the members of Mystik Spiral, in the booth working his guitar like his life depended on it was Curtis Stalano, seated at the controls was a tech guy and Tommy Sherman himself, watching with interest.

Slumped in a chair snoozing was Trent Lane, an empty beer bottle on the ground with his fingertips dangling above it. Amy spotted Max Tyler sitting cross-legged on the ground playing with Legos, and Jesse Moreno was at a wet bar, mixing himself some sort of concoction. Plus there were three teenagers in their own corner, they were covered in tattoos and piercings, the guy was in ripped jeans and a leather jacket with no shirt and was restringing a guitar, the girl with black hair was working on a sketchpad, the one with large glasses was writing in a beaten up notebook.

"Ms. Barksdale." A clear, crisp voice emerged from behind her, Amy jumped a little as she turned to find a rather tall black man having appeared from seeming nothingness behind her.

Her first impression was that he was a dead ringer for Dennis Haysbert, but there was something more... _real_ about this man.

"Are you the manager?" Amy asked politely as she could, considering that Curtis had apparently hit his stride and was working his bass guitar into some sort of frenzy.  
He nodded, "My name is Kyle Armalin, you can call me Kyle though. Shall we continue this discussion in my office?"

"Uh, sure." Amy answered back while hugging herself a little, since she had a feeling that wasn't a request.

Armalin then gave her a surprisingly warm smile, "Relax Ms. Barksdale, I don't bite."

"Alright then," Amy replied as she began to follow him out of the main studio, "But please call me Amy."

"Of course."

* * *

Kyle Armalin's office was a huge surprise to Amy Barksdale, the walls were covered in awards and decorations from what seemed to be every single military organization in the _world_.

Not to mention the countless photos with more movers and shakers than even Queen Elizabeth II could have met in her entire life.

Everything in the room was in what Amy could guess was it's right and proper place, and even in the dim light she could tell that it was designed to impress more than anything else.

"I don't think this is where he actually works." her instincts whispered to her.

Kyle offered her a drink, which she accepted with grace and took a sip and found it to be a very fine vintage scotch.

After the pleasantries were dealt with, Kyle Armalin began to speak, "Amy Barksdale, I'm sure that you are curious about why you are here."

Amy nodded, "Yes, though the letter said this would be an interview for a press agent job. I am currently employed at the Boston Tribune."

"Yes I know, though you have worked in publicity before that. Trust me when I say that the job that I'm offering you will be much bigger than that."

"Bigger?" Amy asked with a confused look, "What do you mean by 'bigger'?"

Kyle grinned very slightly, "That's complicated, and trust me when I say that I was in your shoes not all that long ago. Hell I laughed when I was offered this assignment..."

"Assignment?!"

Kyle's grin grew, "Yes, you see before I became Mystik Spiral's manager I held a position that I'm not at liberty to discuss. But when I came here and began working with the boys and the little ones, it felt like... That I was home."

Amy's confusion grew, after all what the hell did he mean by 'home'.

Kyle chuckled, "I can see that you are uncertain about all this, so let me show you the bottom line."

He then gave her a very basic outline of what her role would be, and Amy's eyes almost bulged out of her head at the salary she would be paid.

"I could retire in a decade with that kind of cash." Amy thought to herself and found herself asking when she could get started.

Kyle just grinned and handed her a file with a couple contracts for her to look over, Amy began to skim it, but found that this was more than just your standard form of contract.

"In case of accidental death... in the event of pregnancy with member(s) of band... parenthood recognition subject to legal negotiation... absolute silence on the inner workings... lifetime protection from assault..." Amy muttered as her eyes took all of this in.

She took in a deep breath and thought it over as carefully as she could, Kyle simply leaned in his chair and gave her all the time in the world.

After a few more minutes Amy muttered, "Fuck it." and asked for a pen.

A few strokes later her signature was wet on the paper, and Amy could have sworn that she felt something like static charge fill her body for a brief moment before vanishing as quickly as it had come.

"Welcome to the Family." Kyle said as he shook her hand firmly, "Now let me bring you to meet them for the first time."

* * *

Amy was surprised to learn that the guys weren't going to hit on her left and right but instead were treating her like a big sister of sorts.

"Though helping Max put away his Legos before hitting the drums was a little weird." Amy thought to herself as she took a seat next to Armalin and watched Max in the booth.

"So what do you think?" A guys voice asked her, Amy glanced up and saw that the male teenager was behind her chair, up close Amy could see his muscular build, though his eyes were hidden by sunglasses and he was chewing on a toothpick, and that his tattooing was even more extensive than she had initially believed.

"Max is good," Amy answered, "Though I don't know what song he's working on."

The guy smirked, "It's one of the new ones, not sure if it'll make the final cut though."

Amy nodded and changed the subject, "Your working on a Body Suit."

The guy nodded, "Every time we're in Japan I go to Akira and he pounds away with that damn stick of his."

Amy chuckled, "Yeah... Though I guess Akira is the guy's pseudonym, right?"

The teen nodded, "Yeah, but fake names are common around here."

Amy raised an eyebrow and glanced at Kyle, he shrugged and glanced at the teen and gestured at him to explain further.

The kid's grin was shark like, "To outsiders I'm Tim Stalano... But my real name is Tom Sloane."

"...You're not joking are you?"

"Nope." Tom said proudly, "Ran off a while ago and I don't regret it a bit."

He then lowered his shades and it was those sea green eyes that had her convinced, for months after vanishing from a fancy prep school without a trace the face of missing person Tom Sloane had been all over the news. No one was sure if he had run off, been murdered, or had been kidnapped.

Amy Barksdale now had an answer, and the contract she had signed ensured that if she breathed a word of this her professional life would be over, forever.

"Why?" Amy found herself asking and Tom grinned and instead of answering looked towards the corner where the two girls were working and yelled, "Daria, Jane, can you come over for a minute?"

"Daria!" Amy hissed and turned to look at the now approaching figures, her brain saying that there was no way that her missing niece was here.

Then she got her first real look at the pair, they were in matching leather jackets, skimpy tops and skinny jeans, combat boots, one girl had short cut black hair with red streaks, the other had her auburn hair with black tips.

Amy took in the girl with auburn hair, her eyes hidden behind large glasses and asked weakly, "Daria?"

"Hi Aunt Amy." Daria said in the voice that Amy would have known anywhere.

The other girl grinned and walked over to Tom and put an arm around him, letting them have their time.

Amy tried to speak but Daria held up a hand.

"I guess you have questions, so I'll try to answer them." Daria said with a shrug of her wild hair, her piercings shining in the light, "Yes, I ran off to become a little sister for Mystik Spiral. No, I have no intention of talking to my old family anytime soon. Yes, I consider the Band and my sibs here to be my real family. And Yes, I was the one who convinced the Manager to hire you."

Amy took in a very deep breath even as Daria joined Tom, taking his other side. Amy watched as Tom first kissed Daria, then Jane.

At that point she wasn't shocked anymore, instead Amy found herself asking, "And am I family to you?"

"Of course Amy." Daria said with the first smile that Amy could ever remember seeing on her niece, "I always felt right when I got to hang out with you. Just like I do with the band."

She then gestured to the booth, and Amy saw Max playing, her ears picked back up on the music and a more powerful static charge filled her body and this one lasted awhile.

"You see?" Daria said to her, "This is what I meant about feeling right."

"I... I can feel it." Amy stammered, "But what am I feeling exactly?"

At her side Kyle Armalin chuckled, "It's time for you to find out."

As he began to explain, Amy started to feel like Alice falling down the rabbit hole but instead of wanting the trip to stop, she wanted it to go on and on forever.

By the end, Amy found a swell of courage and said, "I'm in, no matter what."

Kyle nodded with a smirk and asked if she wanted another drink.

"Oh yes," Amy replied a bit more warmly than she had intended.

Tom smirked nearby with Daria and Jane at his side as the Manager led their new family member to the wet bar, Max in the meanwhile stopped playing as Tommy Sherman noted that it was time for lunch.

"We'll pick it up afterward, man." Tommy said with the thought of world class catering on his mind.

Just another recording session with Mystik Spiral.


	4. Dinner and the Critics

**I'm Tagging With the Band: Dinner and the Critics**

It had only been half an hour, but to Amy it felt like days.

"Well it isn't everyday that you fall face-first into a rabbit hole Amy." A bemused voice whispered in the corner of her mind.

After being formally introduced to the guys of Mystik Spiral, Amy now found herself sitting in a rather grim looking room that Daria quietly told her served as an all-purpose meeting room for the band.

"So it's a conference room." Amy had replied back as even as the doors opened and a catering cart rolled in, pushed by a chef and flanked by a guard.

Daria shrugged, "Yeah, but it's currently being used as a dinning room for the band and us."

The food quickly proved to be pretty damn good, much better than Amy had ever expected to find in a rundown place like this.

"Then again," Amy thought to herself, "Would you expect a world famous group like Mystik Spiral to be recording an album in a beat-up place like this?"

"So Amy," Curtis Stalano said from a couple chairs away as he picked away at his tuna fish, "What'd you think of the new material?"

Amy began to respond before she was cut off by Tommy Sherman saying, "Dude, she didn't get a chance to hear much of it. Remember?"

"Oh..."

Trent did his infamous laugh-cough before adding, "Well once the Critics are done hearing everything we can let Amy get a sneak-listen. It'll help her with, you know... uh..."

"Promoting the album." Kyle Armalin supplied without looking up from his root beer.

"Yeah, that." Trent responded with a small grin.

"Yeah." Jesse Moreno chimed in before finishing a beer and holding out his hand and being served another one by the chef.

Amy tilted her head and saw where Jesse had chucked it and couldn't help but be impressed with the pile he had accumulated so quickly.

She then asked who the 'Critics' were.

Daria and Jane both winced while every single male in the room laughed.

With a very evil grin Tom took it upon himself to explain, and he grabbed a remote and pointed it at a flat screen hanging from a nearby wall.

The screen flashed static and Tom typed in a long string of numbers and the channel changed from sports to what looked like a security room feed.

Amy noted that the room being shown looked like someone's living room, if the room in question was rundown and never taken care of.

It consisted of debris, a tattered couch, an old TV, and two bizzare looking teenage boys rocking out to whatever was playing.

"Those two mutants are the Critics." Tom spoke up, "Dumber than hell and seemingly indestructible even in the face of certain death. We don't know their real names."

"If they had any to start with." Jane chimed in.

Tom nodded, "But everyone calls them Beavis and Butt-head."

"Beavis and Butt-head?" Amy replied incredulously, wondering how in the hell anyone with half a brain would tolerate being known as either one of those names.

"They don't have even half a brain between them," Kyle said with a knowing look in Amy's direction, "Much less a brain _cell_."

"How did...?"

She was cut off by Tom continuing with, "But the one thing that they can do, is judge if a song is awesome or not."

"So when we found them in Texas we brought them here and set up a room that would be familiar to them and they've served us ever since." Curtis butted in.

Amy began to think of the obvious questions, like how the band found them, or if Beavis and Butt-head were willing participants or being held prisoner, when Tommy Sherman spoke up.

"When we did a show in Austin those two attached themselves to a group of roadie drifters that follow us on tour. One day when Tommy Sherman was looking for a cute redhead he thought he saw, he found those two listening to a copy of a recording that shouldn't have left the tour bus."

Tommy then cracked his knuckles and added, "Tommy Sherman was about to beat the hell out of them for stealing when he heard them comment on the song, saying that it needed another guitar rift and should be longer and Tommy Sherman realized that they were right, man."

Daria silently shook her head and muttered something about a snowballs chance in hell, Amy then suspected that those two were the 'two weird boys' she had told her about during the last time they spoke.

Before Daria had run away, before she herself had been hired as a publicist.

"Hey," Jesse drawled, "What track are they on? Cus they are clearly digging it."

Kyle Armalin checked an app on his phone and said, "Track 12."

Tommy Sherman pulled out a small spiral bound notebook and flipped it open and quickly jotted something down with a pen.

Daria then looked around and asked, "Hey, where's Max?"

Then the sound of a flushing toilet could be heard and a door on the far end opened to reveal Max Tyler stepping out of a small restroom that Amy hadn't known was there.

"Good," Amy thought to herself with relief, "I'll need to use the little girls room in a minute."

"Max," Kyle Armalin intoned dangerously (and with a hint of weariness), "Did you wash your hands?"

"Yes..." Max replied hesitantly, looking down at his shuffling feet like a little kid.

"Max..." Kyle drawled with a hint of annoyance.

Max just squeaked and rushed back into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him, the sound of a faucet being turned and water came about a couple seconds later.

Amy looked over at Kyle and whispered, "Are you their manager or their Dad?"

Kyle Armalin shrugged, "It's kind of the same thing."

Amy began hoping that she wasn't going to have to become the Mom.

Her gaze then fell on Daria, who was clearly teasing Tom under the table from the way he was squirming and added an addendum.

"Ok, maybe I'll mother Daria and her... companions." Amy thought to herself, wondering what to call her niece's boyfriend _and_ girlfriend, "But I'm going to draw the line at playing nursemaid for Mystik Spiral."

For some reason she couldn't shake the instinct that was telling her that it was a promise she wouldn't be able to keep.


End file.
